Annie Christie's To Die For:Episode Two

Genre:DramaSwearwords: None.Description:Follow the Light._____________________________________________________________________The rest of the afternoon was boring. Inevitably so. A couple of customers came in. The post was delivered. Time dragged on. I watched a clock whose hands never seemed to move closer to the time of liberation, which was five p.m.

Rupert got a visitor. His friend Ken. They went out together, leaving me in charge. Being in charge of the Marie Celeste wasn’t as big a deal as Rupert liked to make out, but he was such a jerk about his precious shop, especially when showing off to his friend. Ken was an art teacher. Also critic. And Ken and Rupert were running an art class at the Academy in the evenings. It was ruffling some feathers locally. It was a life-drawing class. That’s drawing naked people in case you haven’t cottoned on. It was only for ‘adults’. That’s what Rupert told Christy when she tried to sign up. Like I said, it was designed to ruffle feathers, to get people talking and generally big up Rupert – and Ken.

There was a class on that evening. Christy had told me. Christy’s interest wasn’t in the art, or the possibilities of life-drawing, but in the fact that Ian, the janitor and current object of her warped affection, would have to be on duty to open up and to close the school when the artists left. If I’m honest, Christy was something of a stalker to Ian, and she knew his whereabouts better than he did himself. Considerably better than his wife did. Ian was a bit of a lamb to the slaughter where Christy was concerned. I felt a bit sorry for Ian’s wife, but I tried to keep myself out of it all. What did I know about any of their lives? Who was I to judge?

With a lot of time on my hands to think, I reflected that Christy was an opportunist. And then I realised how ironic it was she was accusing my wee brother Duggie of stalking her. ‘Takes one to know one,’ I thought. Funny how I always used to think of just the right thing to say about two hours after I needed to say it. Wise after the event my mum would call it. My mum was good on homilies and the like. Other than that she was just a mum. To us. We didn’t know or demand anything more of her. We didn’t really see her as a person in her own right. Looking back, that sounds callous, but then I’m old enough to admit now that teenagers have a callous, self-centred, self-absorbed streak a mile wide running through them like the name through a stick of rock. Sorry, mum. You deserved better than that.

But that’s by the by. I should take you back to the story we’re actually in. Which is me standing around the shop wishing I’d thought to ask the biker boy out. Or at least find out his name. Christy would have, if she’d been in my shoes. Which got me thinking, exactly what would Christy have done, and was there anything I could learn from her? She’d have asked his name, for sure. But as I replayed the scene in my head, I couldn’t imagine how I could have done anything differently – without looking even more foolish than I’d felt at the time.

‘It wasn’t like that,’ I’d told Christy as she flung chips at seagulls and laughed at my missing the opportunity of a lifetime. ‘He wasn’t… I couldn’t…’

‘You’re so lame,’ was her response. And I had to admit, in retrospect, I was lame. I started fantasising about what I’d do if I got another chance. But you don’t, do you. Not in real life. If you miss the boat, you miss the boat. Move on. There’s no way I’d ever see him again. But if I did, yeah, I’d ask his name. And yes, Christy, the more I thought about him the more I knew he was to die for. He really was.

Rupert came back around four thirty. The clock ticked on interminably slowly. I was so busy watching the hands that I’d stopped paying attention to the shop, or what was happening out on the street. It was five to five, I’d just put the ‘we’re closed’ sign up and I was wishing the minute hand to move faster so that I could get out to… well, it didn’t matter if it was just another night watching the Lottery with my family… it was out of here.

I was brought out of my reverie by two things. The first was Rupert.

‘You show an undue haste in your desire to depart, young lady,’ he said.

‘What?’ I said, it might have come out more like ‘whaaa?’ I admit.

‘We shut the shop at five o’clock sharp,’ he said. And… he tapped his watch, then pointed at the clock which still read a miserly three minutes to the hour. He then gestured at the door. Outside which was a face, pressed against the window. Trying to get in. Not quite as dramatic as the scene in Wuthering Heights, but…

At first I thought it was Christy, trying to get me into trouble as usual. Then I saw it wasn’t Christy. It was… him. I nearly fell over myself in my rush to get to the door and open it, sure that before I got there he’d have given up and left.

But I was lucky.

‘We’re open,’ I said, flustered as I came right up against his smiling face. ‘You can go in… I just put the sign up…’

Now what was all that about how I would behave if I ever got the chance to meet him again? It was all going wrong all over again.

He didn’t come in. He stood outside the shop and I could feel Rupert’s eyes burning into the back of my head as strongly as the blue eyes in front of me seemed to penetrate the front.

‘No,’ he said, ‘there’s nothing in the shop I want to buy now.’

‘What?’ I said, in all my inarticulate glory. I didn’t get it. I really didn’t get it.

‘I came to see you,’ he said.

I still didn’t get it. Not for a moment. He smiled. He flicked his hair away from his eyes.

‘I came to see you. To ask you…’

‘To ask me?’ I parroted, wondering if maybe I was beginning to get it.

‘To… I would like to walk out with you,’ he said. And smiled.

Oh yes, it was a dream coming true. I was getting it now. He wanted to go out for a walk with me. Now that never happened. Not to me. But I wasn’t going to miss out on this one. I wasn’t that stupid.

‘Just hang on a moment,’ I said. I pointed at the clock and at Rupert, who was glowering behind the counter. ‘I can’t leave till five o’clock.’

‘It’s five o’clock now,’ he said, indicating the hands, which, unwatched by me, had finally hit the miraculous number 12.

‘It is,’ I said. ‘You’re right. I’ll just… just get my coat and…’

He took a step back. ‘I will wait,’ he said.

I went back into the shop. I didn’t care what Rupert thought. I didn’t care if I was blushing. I didn’t care what Rupert was about to say. Even if he sacked me he couldn’t spoil the way I was feeling at that moment.

‘Do you believe in love at first sight, or should I walk past again?’ It was one of Christy’s dreadful chat-up lines. But it sprang into my mind at that precise moment. And yes, Christy, it turns out I did believe in love at first sight. I knew nothing about this boy, but I knew everything I needed to. I was in love. At first sight. First, true love. All the colours of the rainbow couldn’t touch it. He was to die for. And then some.

Rupert didn’t sack me – worse luck. He just made some snidey comment about this not being a pick-up joint and that I should make sure I worked to the terms of my contract. I didn’t listen.

‘See you next Saturday, Mr Taylor,’ I said over my shoulder as I all but ran from the shop, jean jacket flailing as I tried to open the door and put it on at the same time.

I was out. It was one minute past five on Saturday April 26th 2003 and I was standing on the street in Kirkcudbright. Standing next to my first love. And I didn’t even know his name.

‘Can we walk?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ I said. Then decided I really had to engage. ‘I’m Heather, by the way,’ I said.

‘Freddie,’ he replied.

Freddie. Of course. He had to be a Freddie with all that floppy blond hair. If he wasn’t River and he wasn’t Leonardo, he had to be a Freddie. River Phoenix had been dead ten years and we’d just seen Leonardo strut his stuff in ‘The Beach’ on a trip to the cinema in Dumfries, me and Christy, but I knew neither of them would ever land up in Kirkcudbright. Things like that don’t happen. But Freddie was real. Freddie was…

‘I have met no one else all day and…’

He was talking to me and I wasn’t listening. I pulled myself together.

‘Are you travelling?’ I asked him, hoping he hadn’t just told me that.

‘In my mind,’ he said. Uh? That was a bit deep for me. He smiled. ‘I’m studying.’

Oh, okay, a student. I could work with that. Though walking and talking was becoming increasingly difficult as we negotiated the pathway towards the castle. I kept thinking ‘don’t walk on the grass’, while noticing that if I didn’t walk on the grass my hand was unbearably close to his and seemed to have a mind of its own, desirous of just grabbing his and holding it tight. Which I could never do. Could I?

‘What are you studying here?’ I asked. Perhaps too much of an inflexion on the here, but hey, I was nervous.

‘Art. Painting. Life,’ was his reply.

‘Oh,’ was mine.

I don’t know how he did it but he took hold of me. By the shoulders. Turned me in front of him till I was looking out over the harbour.

‘The light,’ he said, as if that explained everything. And in a way it did.

He let me go and I turned back to him, feeling electricity all the way up my arms and a familiar beetroot glow on my cheeks. It seems to go with the ginger hair and freckles.

Auburn, Christy says. She says my hair is auburn, not ginger. It’s nice of her to say so, but I was born a carrot top and a carrot top I remain. At that moment I didn’t even care.

I had forgotten about the rest of the world. All I saw was me and Freddie and the light. But the rest of the world was still there. A voice called at me from across the street.

‘Mum says get some milk on the way home.’ It was Duggie.

‘Get it yourself,’ I shouted back.

‘Sorry,’ I turned back to Freddie, ‘it’s my brother, he’s a pest.’

‘Am I keeping you from family?’ Freddie asked.

No, I thought. No. You are not getting away that easily. You are not going to disappear. I’m not going to lose you again.

‘No,’ I said. ‘It’s fine. Let’s walk.’

We carried on walking the length of the pier.

‘What time is the sunset? he asked. I thought hard. Sunsets weren’t something I paid much attention to. Late April. Hmm…

‘About nine o’clock, I think,’ I said. ‘Why?’

‘I would like to share it with you,’ he said. ‘Here.’

‘Really? Uh… sure…’ I said. I never knew how tongue-tied I was until he tried to speak to me. Was I usually this bad? No wonder I never got very far on dates. I was pathetic. And right now, I needed very badly to raise my game.

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Is it possible?’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘I will have to go home for my dinner.’

There was a long pause. Did I have to say that? Did I have to do that? As I saw Duggie on another circle – if he was stalking me or Christy it was hard to tell – I realised that yes, I did.

‘Would you like to come back with me?’

How bad did that sound? I’d just met the bloke and I’m inviting him home. Would he take it as an act of Scottish hospitality or as the words of a deranged and desperate female, smitten by his all too obvious charms. I knew which one I thought it sounded like as soon as the words left my mouth.

‘I think it’s not appropriate,’ he said.

‘You’d be most welcome,’ I lied. Why couldn’t I let it go? This was stupid. It was such a stupid thing to have said, but I would say anything not to have to walk away from him again. I just knew that if I did that I would probably never see him again.

‘And later?’ he asked.

‘Later?’ I said.

‘After you have had dinner with your family,’ he said. ‘Will you come to spend the sunset with me then?’

Such a simple explanation. I was gobsmacked. This guy really did want to spend time with me. Oh, I knew he said he’d met no one all day. I knew it was just because he was lonely and far from home, but… he meant it.

‘Yes, of course,’ I said.

‘Should I ask your father’s permission?’ he asked.

What? For a walk round town at sunset? It’s not like he’s asking for your hand in marriage, I thought. Sensibly I managed to keep it to myself. For once I did not open my big mouth and put my even bigger foot in it. It’s what Christy would have said, right enough, and made it sound cool. But I was not Christy. I was not Christy. And Christy was not here. Freddie was.

‘No,’ I said. ‘It’s fine. ‘I’ll come out after my dinner and meet you… where do you want to meet?’

We had kept walking while this disjointed conversation was progressing – from my point as much as possible to keep away from the shark-like predation by bike of Duggie who was pretending not to pay attention, doing wheelies on his push bike on the path behind the school gates. Because we were outside the school.

‘Here?’ he said. ‘It is the Academy.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’m a student, too. Here.’ I was beginning to lapse into that almost pigeon style that one employs without meaning to when speaking to someone who talks with an accent, even if their English seems pretty good. It’s just the accent, the change of cadences, that makes one do it. But I hoped it didn’t sound as patronising as it suddenly felt.

‘I thought you worked at the shop?’ he said.

Was this a deal breaker? Was I too young? What could I do? I had to tell the truth. I wasn’t Christy after all.

‘I’m in my last year,’ I said. ‘Taking my final exams in a couple of weeks. Then I’m off to Uni.’

‘And you study at the Academy,’ he said. ‘It means centre of excellence.’

‘It just means High School in Scotland,’ I replied. I didn’t want him to think I was some kind of genius, after all. I was sure I could be enough of a disappointment on my own without that.

‘Where are you from?’

I managed to get that one in. I was clutching at straws. What’s your name? what do you study? where do you come from? The holy trinity of questions for freshers, as I was to discover later on. I had so much to learn.

‘Germany,’ he said.

And I was stumped. I knew nothing, literally nothing about Germany. Apart from the fact we’d fought them in the war. But that didn’t seem relevant or right to talk about.

‘That’s interesting,’ I said.

‘Heather, get a shift on.’

Duggie invaded our space. He did a sort of pathetic wee skid to land alongside us at the entrance to the Academy.

I wanted to tell him to shut up and go away. I wanted to tell him he shouldn’t be riding his bike in the school grounds anyway. But I didn’t want to look like a stupid, bitching sister. I didn’t get the chance to say anything.

‘Is that your bike?’ Duggie asked Freddie, pointing at the big machine that made his own wee pushbike look intensely outclassed.

‘Yes it is,’ he replied. ‘Do you like it?’

‘It’s cool,’ said Duggie. ‘Heather, mum really wants that milk.’ And off he sped. He’d seen Christy before I had. She was coming out of the janitor’s office, which didn’t bode well for her, for Mrs Janitor, or indeed for me if I didn’t get out of there. I certainly didn’t feel like introducing her to Freddie right now. Not when I had to go in to dinner and she was on the prowl.

‘I’ll walk you to your bike,’ I said and instinctively took his arm to turn him away from the school. I let it fall the instant I noticed that he noticed, of course, but…

‘Thank you,’ he said.

‘So, will I meet you back at the school just before nine?’

‘The harbour’s better,’ I said. ‘There’s a better view of the sunset.’

‘Good,’ he said. ‘That is fine. I look forward to that, Heather.’

Heather. My name. He said my name. In that to die for soft accent. I’d always thought German was a harsh sounding language. But when Freddie spoke it, it just sort of melted out of his mouth like thick, dark chocolate.

‘Me, too,’ I replied. ‘Will you be okay till then? There’s a chip shop… what will you eat?’

‘Don’t worry for me,’ he said. ‘I will be fine.’

I didn’t want to leave. But I didn’t want him to stick around and get hoovered up by Christy. For all she was my best friend, she was a firm believer in ‘all’s fair in love and war’. And I knew for a fact she’d drop Janny Ian like a hot potato if she thought there was a chance with the likes of Freddie. The likes of, listen to me. There was no ‘likes of’ Freddie in our lives. Not in our town. He was something completely apart.

And as I watched him fold his floppy blond hair into his motorcycle helmet and kick the bike into life, I knew I was going to play ‘I saw him first’ with a vengeance if I had to. BFF or not, Christy was not getting her hands on Freddie.

I just hoped that he’d be back like he said he would. That watching him drive off down the street wasn’t the last I would ever see of him.

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About the Author

Annie Christie is a pretty ordinary person, except that she was born Annie Christie and then married a man called Christie and so is still called Christie despite having taken on her husband’s name. She sometimes wonders if she should have called herself Christie-Christie: but who would believe that?

Born near Drum of Wartle in Aberdeenshire, Annie moved as swiftly as possible to a place with a less bizarre name – Edinburgh – but the bizarreness chased her and she now lives with her husband Rab in rural Galloway, with a Kirkcudbrightshire postcode. (That's Cur coo bree shire to the uninitiated.) She is an active member of the Infinite Jigsaw Project.